How to Sell Beer: Tips From Chains to Corner Bars

Cheers, March, 2000 by Priscilla Estes

Plain old pints are the standard at The Office, too. But at The Gate and the Map Room, beers are matched to their proper glass. "It goes along with quality of product," says May, quite firmly.

TIP SIX: Promote, Promote, Promote

Almost anything goes when it comes to grabbing and keeping your beer customers. Open your mind with these ideas from chains and individual operators, keeping in mind that the trend today is toward quality, not quantity.

"You should integrate beer into other activities, and vice versa," says promoter Jim Anderson, who staged DevilFest, a Halloween Happening with beer and apple bobbing; and a Craft Fair/Craft Brew event that combined leisurely sipping with shopping at Christmas time (both at Sugar Moms, a funky Philadelphia beer bar).

Keeping with the action theme, The Office Bar sponsors interactive trivia games and Thursday "Vendor Nights," when reps from a brewery come and work up the crowd.

Friday the Firkenteenth was born at the Grey Lodge Pub in Northeast Philadelphia when owner Mike Scoatese noted the unusual number of Friday the Thirteenths in 1998. The firken nights have rolled over and become regular money-making events. To increase mid-week sales, Falling Rock does firken fests on Tuesday (Fullers from England), and nets a full house.

Festivals and special events can draw in new crowds. The Real Ale Rendevous at Philadelphia's Dock Street attracts scores of non-regulars every March for a bevy of different brews. Redbones in Boston sponsors a Pacific Coast Beer fest that packs them in. The Map Room hosts a monthly Beer School where a local expert runs customers through 10 different beers for only $15. The Gate sponsors the Ruppert Cup, a local brewers' competition that "brings in lots of new people," says Gagnon, "and so does our spring beer bar-b-que." In summer, The Office runs a popular Friday and Saturday lobster fest.

Don't have a kitchen? Don't panic. Cope creatively, like The Map Room and The Gate did. They both gather takeout menus from neighborhood restaurants that deliver. Customers order from the house phone while enjoying a beer. When the food arrives, they wash it down with a second beverage of their choice.

Even simple printed beer guides can be real selling tools. "Our table-top Miners Guide, with descriptions on beer and wine and bar happenings, disappears all the time," says Brent Campbell. The beer booklet at Monk's Cafe and Belgian Beer Emporium in Philadelphia reads like an English-Belgian dictionary. And the promotional menus at Red Lobster and TGIF are informative works of art.

TIP SEVEN: Training and Morale

Though bartenders are more knowledgeable about beer than ever before, they still need refreshers and reasons to stay excited.

The Office Bar educates and inspires by taking their managers on brewery tours. "It creates excitement which carries over to the server," says John Augustine. He even took their managers to Germany's October fest last year so they could stage an authentic reproduction in their seven stores. One Wednesday a month, Chris Black at Falling Rock drives his bartenders to local breweries in Colorado. "It keeps them enthused and gives them lots of energy," he says.